Confessions of a chronically online loser

I never had many friends growing up, I wouldn’t say I was constantly bullied terribly or anything but I didn’t seem to fit in with everyone else as well as other people did but this didn’t become as evident until later on in my teens. 

When I was in primary school I would spend some of my lunchtime in the presence of the stray cats that roamed the school grounds. Sometimes I would purposely try to find them if they weren’t in the usual places like the canteen. That affection I was given when I fed them or petted them seemed to have felt more valuable to me than human connection but this didn’t mean I didn’t have friends.

I guess I did have a few “friends” although sometimes they treated me poorly. I remember in particular when I was quite young, I was assistant class monitor or something if I recall correctly (or maybe I wasn’t I’m not too sure) but either way that detail is irrelevant. I was in class trying to study a while before an exam would start, my classmates however did not care about this as much as I did and they were being loud and talking to their friends. I was furious and so I yelled at them and they got angry at me back. I cried. I was just a child after all.

There were several more instances of this throughout primary school, mainly me overreacting in situations and all that. That aside, I also spent a lot of time alone. During PE I would sit down on the grass I watch everyone else play sports because I was the odd one out who had no one to play with. Funny. It didn’t seem as depressing at the time I did it but looking back I’m not particularly sure why I was the way I was.

Fast forward and I’m in secondary school, isn’t that swell? The pandemic was awful but as soon as schools reopened again I was sent to boarding school. My dorm mates weren’t particularly fond of me due to certain things like the fact I would wake up at the first instance of an alarm clock ringing, turn it off and not wake anyone else until they did on their own. I also didn’t stay up to listen to stupid stories told by a senior student because hey sleep was far more important. Another factor which isolated me was the fact I was put into a dorm separate from all of my classmates. It was a complicated situation. One classmate in particular had a sort of grudge against me for whatever reason I could not clearly figure out. 

Then I dropped out of boarding school and went overseas for a year. This was not particularly a good situation to be in as a foreigner but it wasn’t where I was from that people judged me for, it was once again this strange behaviour I emitted like the fact I spent time alone a lot during recess or how I was friends with two other people who at the time could be considered to be in the same boat as I was. 

And then I moved back home and changed schools (again). New kid on the block who came back from overseas, what a title huh. Not that it mattered. First day of school and nobody told me anything, I had to get around the place almost entirely on my own. The help I received was limited but I came to it and figured things out. A whole year later and I’m still eating lunch alone like I did last school year I spent here, I have a couple friends now though. Definitely more than I did last year. Nice people. They don’t seem to hate me although sometimes I wonder if I’m pushing it too much when I ask about hanging out on weekends. Either way I still feel lonely.

I don’t know why but it constantly feels like I’m searching for that one perfect person. Someone who really gets me but not a soulmate or romantic partner, just a friend, a really good friend who has the same interests as me, someone who I can be transparent with without feeling scared or judged. That, that is all that I’ve wanted for years and years but the person never comes along. A long pointless wait for something infinitely imminent and all I could do is watch everything I’ve ever wanted to avoid it unfoil in front of my own eyes. 

Sometimes I believe that it is almost unfair for me to live this way but at other times I feel as if it is almost deserved because why would someone like me deserve a friend like the perfect fictional image I have in my head, it makes no sense for someone like that to even know me. In fact, would that not just create the same amount of jealousy I receive from feeling envy towards others who actually do fit in? 

I’m always so envious you see, nothing I have seems to be enough to me and yet I am grateful for what I have been given and yet I crave, I starve for some much more than I have received. I am never full and I will always feel this way.